Skhul and Qafzeh hominids

The Skhul/Qafzeh hominids or Qafzeh–Skhul early modern humans are hominid fossils discovered in the Qafzeh and Es Skhul Caves in Israel. Skhul Cave is on the slopes of Mount Carmel; Qafzeh Cave is a rockshelter in Lower Galilee.

The remains found at Es Skhul, together with those found at the Wadi el-Mughara Caves and Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh, were classified in 1939 by Arthur Keith and as Palaeoanthropus palestinensis, a descendent of Homo heidelbergensis.

The remains exhibit a mix of traits found in archaic and anatomically modern humans. They have been tentatively dated at about 80,000-120,000 years old using electron paramagnetic resonance and thermoluminescence dating techniques. The brain case is similar to modern humans, but they possess brow ridges and a projecting facial profile like Neandertals. They were initially regarded as transitional from Neandertals to modern humans, or as hybrids between Neandertals and modern humans. Neandertal remains have been found nearby at Kebara Cave that date to 61,000-48,000 years ago, but it has been hypothesised that the Skhul/Qafzeh hominids had died out by 80,000 years ago because of drying and cooling conditions, favouring a return of a Neandertal population suggesting that the two types of hominids never made contact in the region. A more recent hypothesis is that Skhul/Qafzeh hominids represent the first exodus of modern humans from Africa around 125,000 years ago, probably via the Sinai Peninsula, and that the robust features exhibited by the Skhul/Qafzeh hominids represent archaic sapiens features rather than Neandertal features. The discovery of modern human made tools from about 125,000 years ago at Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates, in the Arabian Peninsula, may be from an even earlier exit of modern humans from Africa.

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